Within this favoured domain the products of nature and of human industry vie with each other in extent and variety.  A bare enumeration would read like a page of a gazetteer and possibly make no more impression than a column of figures.  To form an estimate of the marvellous fecundity of the country and to realise its picturesqueness, one ought to visit the provinces in succession and spend a year in the exploration of each.  If one is precluded from such leisurely observation, undoubtedly the next best thing is to see them through the eyes of those who have travelled in and have made a special study of those regions.

To more than half of the provinces I can offer myself as a guide.  I spent ten years at Ningpo, and one year at Shanghai, both on the southern seacoast.  At the northern capital I spent forty years; and I have recently passed three years at Wuchang on the banks of the Yang-tse Kiang, a special coign of vantage for the study of central China.  While residing in the above-mentioned foci it was my privilege to visit six other provinces (some of them more than once), thus gaining a personal acquaintance with ten out of the eighteen and being enabled to gather valuable information at first hand.

A glance at the subjoined table (from the report of the China Inland Mission for 1905) will exhibit the magnitude of the field of investigation before us.  The average province corresponds in extent to the average state of the American Union; and the whole exceeds [Page 6] that portion of the United States which lies east of the Mississippi.

China proper

---------------------------------------------
Provinces          |   area    | population
| SQ.  Miles |
-------------------|-----------|-------------
Kwangtung (Canton) |    99,970 |  31,865,000
Kwangsi            |    77,200 |   5,142,000
Fukien             |    46,320 |  22,876,000
Chehkiang          |    36,670 |  11,580,000
Kiangsu            |    38,600 |  13,980,000
Shantung           |    55,970 |  38,248,000
Chihli             |   115,800 |  20,937,000
Shansi             |    81,830 |  12,200,000
Shensi             |    75,270 |   8,450,000
Kansuh             |   125,450 |  10,385,000
Honan              |    67,940 |  35,316,000
Hupeh              |    71,410 |  35,280,000
Hunan              |    83,380 |  22,170,000
Nganhwei(Anhwei)   |    54,810 |  23,670,000
Yuennan             |   146,680 |  12,325,000
Szechuen           |   218,480 |  68,725,000
Kiangsi            |    69,480 |  26,532,000
Kweichau           |    67,160 |   7,650,000
-------------------|-----------|-------------
Totals             | 1,532,420 | 407,331,000

[Page 7] chapter II

A JOURNEY THROUGH THE PROVINCES—­KWANGTUNG AND KWANGSI

Hong Kong—­A Trip to Canton—­Macao—­Scenes on Pearl River—­Canton Christian College—­Passion for Gambling—­A Typical City—­A Chief Source of Emigration